Lost
by PagetPaulson
Summary: Never put your hands on a woman. AU.


"NO!" Her body shook as she hid her head in her hands, the sound of glass crashing down around her and crunching beneath the older man's feet frightening her. "Stop it!" She felt the heat of her breath bounce off her hands and warm her face as she tried to catch her breath, her heart pounding in her ears.

The room was dimly lit, and she could hear his shoes stepping on the glass as he tried to walk toward her.

"Get away," she hissed, tears rolling down her cheeks as she finally looked up, her body shaking. "Get away from me!"

"Emi-"

"NO!"

The knocking on the apartment door grew harder, the screaming of their teammates causing a pounding in her head harder than her heartbeat.

Her eyes met those of the older man, her chest tightening at the sight of the unnerving anger found there, his heavy fists clenching at his sides. "Aaron," she whispered, her voice scratchy and scared as she continued to cry.

He clicked his jaw before walking away, the pounding on the door becoming too much for him that he stomped his way down to the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

Emily's body was vibrating with tremors, her eyes wide and blank as she stared down to the glass around her.

"Emily!"

She winced as the door was broken down, her body cowered in the corner starting to grow stiff. "Aaron," she cried to herself, glancing down the hall where he'd fled as her friends surrounded her.

JJ did her best not to grow sick at the sight of her strongest friend doing her best to hide and shield herself against the wall. "Emily," she whispered, squatting beside the older woman. "Emily, can you hear me?"

Reid stood back, his jaw dropped and stomach flipping around inside at the sight of his best friend.

"Emily?"

Sniffling, the brunette agent seemed to slip out of her shock and finally looked to the blond who was down beside her.

"Hey," she smiled softly, chancing a hand to the older woman's arm. When her friend didn't shrink back, JJ did her best to help her up. "Come on, let's get you out of here."

Emily, wide eyed with her shirt sleeves torn and face covered in red blotches and tear stains, quickly shook her head.

Stepping forward, Rossi took on of her hands. "Hi there piccola," he whispered to her, helping the agent over the glass with her bare feet.

"Aaron?"

The Italian man shook his head, hearing Morgan down the hall pounding on the bedroom door. "He'll be just fine."

Emily whimpered when her toe hit a tiny shard of glass, and she let the older man pick her up and take her over to the couch so he could take it out of her skin. "I'm sorry," she husked, her heartbeat trying to calm itself down as Rossi held her foot in his lap.

"What do you have to be sorry for, Tesoro?"

JJ sat beside her friend and held her hand.

The brunette woman took in the deepest breath she could and met the eyes of the man on her coffee table. She couldn't find the right words to explain the confusion and torment wracking through her, but she didn't want them to hurt the man she loved.

Hearing the door smashing to the ground Emily jumped, her hand immediately tightening around the blonde's.

"Morgan," came her boyfriend's dangerously low voice. "Get out."

"Get out? After what you did to her?"

"I didn't touch her."

"You didn't touch her?"

Emily winced at the sound of knuckles against skin, the distinct sound of a bone cracking reaching all the way to her from down the hall. "Morgan!"

The dark skinned man walked back out of the bedroom and waved his hand in the air, the pain in his knuckles quickly disappearing. The Unit Chief was lucky one punch was all he got.

"Don't," she whispered fearfully, the tears coming back to her eyes. "Don't hurt him."

Morgan cursed himself. It was as if his best friend had turned into a stereotypical battered wife. "Come on," he gruffed, getting Emily's boots from the coat closet. "Let's go."

Emily shook her head, taking her hand from her friend's. "No, where's Aaron?" She stood, doing her best not to make a face at the pain that shot through her foot when she stood on the fresh wound.

"Emily, we have to go."

She ignored the calls of her friends as she slowly made her way down toward the bedroom that she and her boyfriend shared, her hands flat against the tops of her thighs as she approached the doorway. Silently stepping inside, her eyes scanning the damaged room and her breath hiccupping inside her, the brunette agent looked to the man on the bed.

He held his jaw, blood seeping from his spilt lip. She could tell he was angry.

"Aaron?"

The older man tried to calm his breathing before he looked up, his hands falling to his knees as he took in her appearance. "Baby."

His husking voice made her eyes sting with fresh tears, but she kept herself in the doorway. "I have to go."

Hotch's heart stopped. "What?" He watched as she took a tentative step forward, and he began to look around their room. "Let me clean up." He stood from the edge of their bed on shaky legs and started picking up her belongings he'd thrown around the room, placing the pillows back on the bed as neatly as he could before he heard her voice from the door.

Emily gazed longingly to the older man, and she sat down in the seat he had left. Waiting until he sat himself down beside her, the brunette woman tried to catch her breath, her tears creating a lump in her throat her breath could barely get around. "I'm leaving."

"What do you mean?"

She could hear the pain in both of their voices, her eyes looking into the confused ones of the man she had given everything to. "Aaron, I have to leave," she hiccupped, her head pounding as she shook it. "I can't do this anymore."

Hotch seemed dumbfounded, his eyes casting toward their team members out in their living room.

"You're drunk, but this isn't the first time. Even when you're sober you get angry," she sniffled, the tears and mascara sticking to the bags underneath her eyes. "And I can't stay here with you anymore."

They had been together for four years, living with one another for two.

Hotch's fists clenched.

"Aaron," she whispered, afraid she was to throw him into another temper tantrum. "I love you, but you need help more than you need me."

He went to take her hands, but when she pulled them back into her own lap he felt his eyes fill with tears.

Emily's chin started to tremble. "I'll call you in a few days," she nodded, staring down at her hands, "and I'll tell Haley that I won't be picking Jack up from school anymore." If she was going to heal, she needed to be away from the Unit Chief in every way, shape and form.

Hotch watched with sad eyes as the scared brunette tried to compose herself before standing again. "I didn't hurt you."

"You almost took my head off out there," she retorted in her watering voice, her eyes never looking back to the older man. "I don't want to talk to you when you're drunk. I can't." _Obviously_ , she thought to herself. When she had tried to reason with him just a little while before, he'd thrown a glass at her head and had her cowering in a corner from his screaming.

Stepping into the bedroom, Morgan offered his hand to the brunette woman. "Come on, Em."

Chancing a look back at the silent man on the edge of their bed, Emily huffed.

He watched her walk out with the help of their teammates, his watering eyes following her wincing body and red eyes before she left him with his head in his hands and his tears flooding his palms.


End file.
